Every Day Thereafter
by Mystic25
Summary: "You can't blame gravity for falling in love-" Albert Einstein Harry/Hermione. Post DH
1. Chapter 1

"Every Day Thereafter"

Mystic25

Summary: _"You can't blame gravity for falling in love-_ " Albert Einstein Harry/Hermione. Post DH

Rating: T for language and imagery.

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" _We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all"_

 _-_ Eleanor Roosevelt 

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The weather had given up trying to ward off the impending winter and instead embraced it with gusts of cold air and falling snow flurries that covered yards and mailboxes in a blanket of white.

The night had just begun to fall, spreading a velvet inky blackness throughout the last bits of sunset hanging on the edge of the sky. All around the neighborhood hung twinkling lights, and inside uncovered windows, Christmas trees in all their finery and decorations sat in a place of honor.

Up high, a blood red leaf tugged at the thin branch of an elm tree with branches dusted in a layer of snow. It broke free of the branch and drifted down on puffs of updrafts, sticking against the side of a black leather ankle boot.

She reached down to pluck the leaf off her boots, letting the velum thin thing drift down towards the sidewalk that was carpeted with other leaves in alternating colors of orange and yellow.

Standing back after letting go of the leaf took moments longer than bending down hand. The whole of her equilibrium tilted off center. She used her denim clad leg to brace herself up, steadying herself as the world shifted back under her control.

She lowered her arm to her side, then raised it up to reach out with the briefest moment of before laying her hand against the roundness that was protruding out from underneath her coat. A flutter of movement danced out across palm. She had grown used to this sensation, and odd feeling of tumbling and rolling and occasional pain when a foot or an elbow jabbed or kicked against one of her internal organs.

The ripple stopped and she lowered her hand slowly away again, staring up at the wrought iron fence outside the yard. Just inside the grass, hanging from the branch of a sprawled birch tree, hung a wooden swing she had helped to make when she was 8. It was before she learned that she was a witch,. She had been helping her dad hold the plywood board down on the sawhorse, listening to the grind of the electric saw as it came down and slice the board in half. But before it could reach the puddle it was about to fall into she remembered it doing the oddest thing, flipping over once like a kid doing a summersault and landing in the dry grass just because she was looking at it and thinking what she wanted it to do. Her dad had been too preoccupied with the saw to see it happen. But her voice was loud and extremely excited when she told him what had just happened. Her mom called her imagination overactive, but then at a picnic for her primary school, she kept a porcelain plate from smashing onto picnic table in the same fashion, and this time _both_ her parents had seen it, and had ushered her home, her in the backseat talking non-stop about how what was happening to her. A few months after her eleventh birthday, a tawny owl had landed on her mailbox with an envelope sealed with a red seal bearing the Hogwarts crest.

Her gaze moved upward to the windows, looking through thin cranberry curtains that always made their appearance when October came in its full fall glory, A bright light shown in high window above small garage that looked like it was tucked into the house: the window that looked into her old room. A shadow moved across the lit brightness, her heart beat shuttered inside her as she watched the shadow move to where she knew her bed was just behind the window, watching the shadowed figure of the woman move to sit down onto the mattress.

Hermione's breath hung in her throat, caught between heartbeats, watching her mum move around her bedroom until her shadow disappear from the light. From where she stood on the street she couldn't see her mum's face, but she saw her messy hair in a shadowed blob above her head. Something felt like it was melting inside her, something that she had frozen inside to survive what she had to survive. And suddenly she was too far away from the house, from the light of that small room.

A pop that mirrored a fire cracker going off echoed behind her; the air grew heavy with a far off burning smell for just one second. Somewhere from a cluster of fur trees came quick steps moving through the grass of the neighboring yard. The figured then moved quickly to the sidewalk, the shape of a man, not much older than her, dressed in black wool, a pair of round glasses hiding green eyes, a mop of dark hair.

The quiet sound of Harry's boots crunched over the partially dried leaves on the sidewalk beside the neat white wood paneled two story house. Light streamed from the windows, a buttery yellow under the glow of dimmer street lamp midway in the yard.

Harry stood next to her, watching the way she stood staring at the house. "You okay?" He cast his eyes down briefly to her stomach, then back up to her face silhouetted in the glow of the streetlamp.

"I'm fine," she acknowledged his question but did not take her eyes off the house. A porch light came on, and then came sound of a dog barking. Something inside her tugged – she had never had a dog before, it must have been after.

Harry reached and set a hand on her arm. "It'll be alright-"

"I cast such a tangle of spells, I made it as infallible as I could-" She turned away from the house, her dark eyes hanging with the emotions that clung to her like a cold mist "what if they don't remember me?" Her voice trembled with a disbelief. "What if after all this time, I can't undo it?"

"They'll remember-" Harry reached up and set a hand against the side of her face. "There your mum and dad Hermione-" he felt her nod for the briefest of moments under his hand before he moved it down, pulling her hand into his "Come on," he tugged her towards the small gate in the fence, holding it open as they both passed through it. Their feet crunched on the layer of snow underfoot, the breeze began to pick up, setting the wooden swing to sway gently. Their shoes crunched over dead leaves in the yard as they walked past the streetlamp marking the midway point, Hermione's grip on his hand became tighter as drew closer and closer to the house.

The dog barking grew louder. The front door opened and a small white terrier with roan and chocolate colored spots shot out into the yard at a whizzing run, barking like it thought it was a much bigger dog, growling and snapping at them as they approached, until a voice stopped it.

"Hugo! Enough! —what the devil is it! -"

Hermione stopped walking so suddenly that Harry's shoulder collided against hers.

Standing on steps outside the green painted door of the house was a man dressed down in a gray sweat shirt and jeans. He was looking out over the yard with cautious eyes because of Hugo's, barking.

These were the same eyes that Hermione had last seen wrapped up in a foggy, but contradictory haze behind a double-sided mirror at St Mugos Muggle Spell Reversal Ward. He argued with Healer that he wasn't bloody ill and to release him and his wife, Eura, back home to Sydney before he called Amnesty International.

Hermione had stood there, and watched this from behind a two-way mirror, her heartbeat hammering against her ribs. She had been advised to not reveal herself to her parents too early. Because it would cause too much of a rush in their memories, because it could fracture them to know that they had a daughter, a witch daughter, presumed dead in a massive war.

But, she had received an owl message from the head Healer at the Muggle Spell Reversal Ward three days ago stating they had finally managed to undo all the Oblivation spells she had set upon her parents. But that they also warned her, that there had never been a witch or wizard who had attempted to confound Muggle memories with such a massive number of spells. Yes, they had been able to reverse them, but the residual effects on her parents' minds could leave them with permanent memory loss.

But her dad was standing in front of her now. No two-way mirror, no Healers from St. Muggo's with wands, casting hopeless glances at the Muggle parent of the 18-year old daughter who had jinxed him into oblivion. Instead, he looked out over the lawn for a burglar or solicitor he suspected caused the little dog at his feet to be on edge about.

Hugo barked again, louder, catching the smell of people it had never known, taking off in a second mad sprint across the snow dampened lawn.

"Hugo, stop!" Mr. Granger ran after the little dog. "There's nothing there boy!" His running stopped when he saw both Harry and Hermione standing there on the lawn.

Harry heard the moment Hermione's breath stopped.

The same moment of clarity came over Mr. Granger's gaze, like the layer ice cracking over a frozen river at the sight of the girl, the 18-year-old woman, standing in front of him with eyes like his own.

"Hermione?-"

The world spun around Hermione at the sound of her name. All the fear she had been holding onto for months that nothing would reverse what she had done, that she had turned herself into an orphan by conscious choice, it evaporated in a rush, a gasp of disbelief as she broke away from Harry and ran across the remaining distance of the yard.

"Hermione-!" Peter Granger ran out across the lawn, meeting his daughter out in the snow, her arms flinging up around his neck.

Peter threw his arms up around her back, squeezing her in a hug that pushed all the air out of her lungs, shouting out towards the house "Lucinda!" He turned to back to Hermione " _Where have you been,_ love?" his voice was thick with tears, gathering massive amounts of his daughter's frame up against his gray sweats, pulling her back to hold her face with his hands "Where did you go-!?"

Hermione's face was soaked in tears, dripping off her chin. "I'm sorry –daddy I'm so sorry-" she buried her face in her father's sweatshirt, clawing her hands up his back.

"Peter-?" the front door slammed like an echo and a woman in jeans and an old sweater ran across the lawn. "Peter, what is it, what's wrong? -" Lucinda Granger's call fell away when she saw the scene on her front lawn. Her hands flew up to her mouth, a gasp left her, tangling its way in her fingers. Tears fell in a rush down her face, she ran the rest of the way across the lawn reaching her husband at the streetlamp, "Hermione-?" she said her daughter's name like it was a wish on a birthday cake candle that she had given up believing would come true.

Hermione pulled away from her father with a gasp at the sight of her mother standing there, and herself at her mother—

"Baby-" Lucinda's arms hung for just a moment in shock, before sobs overtook her and she threw her arms around her daughter. "oh, thank you god, _thank you god!_ -" she pulled Hermione back and kissed her all over her damp face, then gathered her back up, hugging her as tight as her arms could hold.

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It was 10 full minutes before the Grangers could pull away from their daughter to lead her into the house. And it took them an additional two minutes before they realized that Hermione had not come alone, but there were more renewed tears when the realized that it was Harry and that he was also, miraculously alive.

The pair of them were led into the living room with its eggshell white couch hung with colorful throws facing a fireplace with orange flames that flickered safely behind a black iron grate. On the mantle were pictures of Hermione, placed in a crooked manner like they had been flung up there in one round.

After casting the spells on her parents, Hermione had watched all her images evaporate from behind the framed glass, leaving her parents to stand beside oddly disproportionate spaces in her absence. But, now, all the pictures had been restored with her in them, a neat row of her face, aged through her 17th birthday smiling at her.

Hermione was pushed into the couch by her mother, who had yet to fully let go of her so that she was still in her wool jacket from outside. Both Granger women's faces were a blotchy mess of tears in the lamp light, but eventually Lucinda's need to nurture her daughter took another direction and she first set Hermione firmly into the cushions of the sofa before turning around to the kitchen. She came back out with two hot mugs of earl gray tea brimming with half and half and curled with hot steam. She pressed both into Harry and Hermione's hands.

Mr. Granger stepped over to the china cabinet that stood against the wall of the dining room, opening it with a rattle of the glass doors. He pulled out a squat bottle of amber colored scotch, and two highball glasses. He twisted the cap off the bottle, and poured one glass half full, then the other walking over to the couch, holding the extra glass out to Harry.

Harry stared at the glass, then the teacup, in a question that was answered by Mr. Granger's next words:

"Go on son," he pushed the glass in between Harry's fingers.

Harry set the teacup down on the coffee with a rattle of white porcelain, closing his fingers around the etched glass filled with the dark liquor, letting it sit low between his knees.

"Hermione love, here," Mr. Granger hovered his glass over his daughter's tea cup, "Some of this in your tea will help-"

Hermione set her hand on top of her teacup, the warmth of the rising steam permeating on her palm "No, dad, I'm alright-"

"None of us are alright darling-" he waved the glass at her like he thought she was still trying to be proper and afraid to break a rule. "you're not a girl anymore-"

The weight of her dad's words sunk into Hermione as she glanced over at the fireplace mantle at the display of pictures: her in the tub, in a duck hooded bath towel, dressed in past Halloween costumes. Her old Hogwarts acceptance letter was framed next to her last muggle school photo taken at the Dragon Academy. These things now were now only memories of who she was currently – and at that moment she wanted only to be that girl again.

"Peter," Lucinda's mothering instinct had been unused for nearly a year, but now in the vicinity of her daughter, they were kicked into overdrive as she sensed the change in Hermione, the stiffening of her shoulders. She set her head atop Hermione's, rubbing her back. "You're home baby, that's all that matters, you're home."

"Harry-" Peter Granger stood over Harry, his drink in his hand, hovering it over the one he had given Harry.

Harry could see the swell of emotion in his eyes, so he raised the glass he was given and let it clink against the other, taking a pull of the dark liquid which burned down his throat.

"I'm hard pressed to be your father – but I think he would have been proud of you, for what you done-" Peter Granger looked back to the other side of the couch. "You brought our daughter back to us, you kept her safe-"

"She kept herself safe sir, and me-" Harry corrected, gaze on Hermione sitting on the sofa across from him on the chair, half swallowed up by her mother's grip. "She saved my life, on more than one occasion."

Mr. Granger couldn't help a smile that came to his face. "That's my girl."

A moment of bubbled laughter came from Hermione somewhere she had stored such things away after the Battle of Hogwarts that had nearly cost her life, Harry's life, the life of their –it was a release from nearly a year of fear and worry. With the laughter came a pull of tears that escaped her, sliding down her fingers until they became slick and she lost the grip on her cup, spilling tea down the front of her jacket.

"Oh god, darling here- Lucinda snatched a thick white paper napkin from off the coffee table. She wiped the spreading dark stain of tea soaking into the wool, tugging at the knot of the sash, reaching up and undoing the top of the double-breasted buttons "take this off before it scalds you-"

"I've got it mum-" Hermione tried to still her mother's hands she tried to still her mother's fingers on the buttons of her coat, but Lucinda's hands moved in a flurry of movement that she had used to get her into her jumper during her primary school days.

"It's okay, sweetheart," Lucinda reached the last row of buttons "I have it-" She opened the opened the front of the coat, reaching the napkin out again to wipe any stains on her daughter's clothes. Underneath the thick wool coat, Hermione wore a cable knit white sweater, and Lucinda's hands stilled when she saw it.

The sweater was a loose knit, but still form fitting enough that it could not hide the swell of Hermione's pregnant stomach.

Hermione stood there, napkin in hand, eyes shifting to her mother, then her father, watching both their gazes linger on the prominent roundness of her abdomen, traveling their gazes from it to her face.

Hermione felt the depth of their looks, the questions, the bewilderment. She looked quickly to Harry, sensing her parents follow her gaze, watching Harry for his immediate reaction. "I'm going to wash up in the kitchen-"

"Hermione-"

"Please mum," Hermione stilled her mother's words, looking down at the stain on her sweater, a very small miniscule bit of tea that had managed to soak through the heavy wool of her jacket, "I'll be right back, kay?" she walked away towards the tiled kitchen, reaching the stainless-steel sink. She turned on the water, drowning the napkin under the stream, wiping it across the small dot of a stain just above her belly.

A puff of air blew past her ankles, she looked down to see the small terrier that had followed her dad out into yard staring at her with coal black eyes. The dog regarded her with a head cock, giving a breathy bark when she tried to reach for it, but then proceeded to lick her fingers. She petted the tip of its wet nose and the animal leapt up so high against her that she had to reach out to grab it before it toppled backwards.

"Hello," she scratched the dog behind the ears.

Hugo's back paws rested on her stomach like it was a stool, and he leant up to lick her face with a pointy noise.

"Hermione-" her mother's voice made her look up from Hugo, watching as she walked into the kitchen.

From the outer edge of the living room Harry stood right in the open doorway that led into the kitchen, just a few steps behind Lucinda Granger.

Lucinda drew in a breath, like she was about to talk, then closed her mouth on her air. She was a doctor, a woman of science, she had given Hermione all the appropriate lectures when she had just reached puberty at nearly 13 in a three-page letter to her at Hogwarts, then again once she came home for the summer.

Hermione stood there wondering now how her mum could not have known it outside when she hugged her, maybe presuming it was the wool of the coat, or being too caught up in emotions to notice what she was noticing.

Now in the bright florescent light of the kitchen, she stared at Hermione, mouth in a tight line.

Hermione let the dog down, and it capered out of the kitchen with a click of its nails on the tile. She turned to face her mother head on, bracing her hands on the edge of the counter. Her gaze moving back up with her and to her mom who had yet to say anything else besides her name.

"Mum, I can explain-"

"You don't have too sweetheart," this statement came from her father who walked into the kitchen, passing Harry to stand beside his wife on the celadon colored linoleum tiled floor. "It's obvious just by looking at you-" he raised one hand to gesture at his daughter, arms falling away like his words.

"How did this happen?" Lucinda's voice was not unkind, but there was something in it that was toppling into disbelief.

"In the usual way, I suspect." Her husband answered for her, his voice had gone a notch lower.

Hermione turned to her father's gaze. "Dad, there was a war-"

"A _War?_ Is that the excuse the kids are using nowadays? -"

"Daddy please-"

"Is this your doing?" Mr. Granger turned to Harry.

"Sir?" Harry said back.

"Is this _yours_? Or is it the Weasley boy that I'll be related to in a month or two?"

"No Sir," Harry answered. "I-" he shifted his gaze back to Hermione. "It's, not Ron's-"

Peter Granger's face narrowed just a bit at Harry, then over at Hermione. "Have you two never heard of protection?"

"Peter please-" Lucinda said.

"I need to know Lucy, I need to know how this happened. She's only 18 for Christ's sake!" His temper flared like embers being fanned in open air.

"Dad, there wasn't-" Hermione's voice was a breath of disbelief. "It was too late-when I found out it was too late, I couldn't do anything, I didn't know how-"

" _Didn't know how?_ -" Mr. Granger's voice rose a level higher, his breathing hard, shaking his head at his daughter, like he was trying to wish his way out of a dream. "What's the point of all those spells they taught you at Hogwarts if you don't know how to take care of something like this!"

"We were on the run Sir," Harry spoke up. "For months, we had to keep away from wizards that wanted us dead, that wanted worse for Hermione, she thought it was the flu, after- I told her to go, I told her to go to a hospital -but she stayed to help me, it's not her fault, it's _mine_ -"

"Your damn right it's your fault!" Mr. Granger's voice echoing around the living room, his hand waved at Harry, his whole body shook with emotion. "Everything that has cost us our daughter the past 8 years of her life is your _bloody_ fault!"

"Peter, that's enough!" Mrs. Granger moved in between her husband and Harry, setting a hand on his arm. "They're just kids, they did what they had to do, they didn't, they didn't know what they were doing!-" she broke off and looked at Hermione. "We just got you back Hermione," how could- you're too _young_ to have a child!" her face was twisted like her words were agony to say. " _What were you thinking?_ "

"They were going to kill Harry Mum-" Hermione's voice was shrill, shaking, her hands tight into fists "They were going to _kill_ him! I couldn't let him fight alone, he's my friend!-"

"So instead you let him do this? -" Peter said. " _Ruin_ your life after you just got it back? -how is that friendship? Hermione _how?_ "

"Dad, I-" Hermione's ears drummed with a kind of horrible white noise.

"You _can't_ have a baby Hermione-" Peter said to his daughter. "You _can't_!"

"But I am, daddy," Hermione's voice was a plea. The kitchen counter was cold under her hands, she tried to hold onto the hug that she had felt from her father outside in the yard, the relief, the warmth of being near him, instead of this. "I _am-"_

Her father looked up at her, eyes not angry, not hateful, instead disappointed, but sad at where her life had ended up. His eyes glistened. "I know."

Hermione looked from him to her mother, seeing tears falling from her face, gaze mirroring her father's.

"I'm sorry," Her breath poured out of her in jagged pieces, encompassing them both in a watery gaze.

"Hermione-"

She walked hurriedly out of the kitchen, moving away from her mom when she tried to reach for her, pushing past her father and Harry, the later who called her name.

She broke into a run when she reached the living room, snatching up her coat that was dropped in a puddle on the floor.

"Hermione- Lucinda came around the front of the sofa, grabbing her daughter's shoulder. "Darling sit down, let's _talk!-"_

Hermione reached into a pocket inside her coat, pulling out her wand, moving away from her mom's touch and towards the door.

"Hermione Jean Granger-" her father's voice echoed out from the kitchen. "You're not _leaving_ this house until we sort this out!"

Hermione's fingers pressed into the grooved carvings at the base of her wand, head swam with dizziness, she set a hand to her stomach, leaning heavily over it, a shuddered breath escaped her.

"Hermione-" her mother reached for her again, but Hermione righted herself before she could touch her.

She breathed in a jagged breath, "I shouldn't have come back-" She tore open the front door, sending it to hit hard against the wall behind it.

"Hermione!" Lucinda wiped at her eyes, running after her daughter as she burst out into the lawn "Hermione, come back!" She chased after Hermione but only managed to graze her hand along her sweater before there came a hard pop as Hermione disapperated from under her hold under the cloak of night. _"Hermione!_

She turned to see her husband standing in the doorway rushing out towards the grass with of the lawn, Harry only a step behind. He searched, looking around the darkness, turning to see the shocked expression of her parents. He removed his wand from his jacket, dissapperated steps behind where Hermione had, the last sound he heard was Mrs. Granger dropping to her knees to sob her daughter's name into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

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 _"Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it."_

-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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Harry felt himself being tugged and pulled through a whizzing blackness until he emerged in a soft blanket of fog near a damp hillside near a collection of wellington boots where three fat garden gnomes sat sleeping in the darkness.

"Hermione!" he ran headlong up the hill until the Burrow's silhouette emerged in the blackness. A wood box sat by next to the wide set mullioned window that overlooked the living room. Only a few lamps were lit on lower level, casting the interior in a shadowy darkness.

He found her here. Her body was bowed in on itself, one hand on the wood box, the other on her mouth, great wracking sobs shook waved through her frame, coming out in muffled gasps from her closed fingers.

Harry reached her and took her shoulder, turning her around to face him. "Hermione-"

"They don't want it-!" A wounded cry shook her entire body forward, tears traveled wet and slick down her entire face, "They don't want it. I don't understand-" her breath was swallowed by painful gasps of air, shuddering near hyperventilation "-What am I supposed to do?!- _Oh Harry!-"_

Her weight collapsed into him, he caught her, wrapping his arms around her. Sobs poured out of her in great wracking spasms, that shook through him, ripping into him like a fired knife blade, echoing a lost lonely sound into the night.

A bright light came up from the very highest windows of the burrow, then one below it on the next level. The front door opened.

"Harry?" Mrs. Weasley came out into the lawn, her wand out, brandished against the night sky. "Harry!" she ran to them when she saw the pair of them huddled together into the night. "What happened?! _Author!"_ she called over her shoulder to her husband from somewhere inside the Burrow.

Mrs. Weasley turned back to Hermione "Hermione, love what is it?" she set a hand on her shoulder. Are your hurt? Come inside, quickly!" she ushered them inside, just as her husband reached them.

Author's form raced down the wooden steps "What happened? -"

"I don't know," Mrs. Weasley answered, pushing back Hermione's tear dampened hair, feeling her face, feeling her shaking through her one layer of clothing "Love you're freezing, Author, take her upstairs to our room, run a bath, we need to warm her immediately, I'll be there straight away," Harry-" Mrs. Weasley said as Harry was reluctant to release Hermione from his grip as Mr. Weasley reached down to pick her up.

"You stay, I'll get you sorted down here- she'll be alright,"

Harry watched as Mr. Weasley lift Hermione into his hold, carrying her away up the stairs.

"It's alright love, it's alright, sit here," She pushed him into a wooden chair at the dining room table, waiving her wand in the air, and a minute later a hammered copper mug appeared above him that radiated steam. "Careful it's hot-," she lowered the potion towards him, holding it carefully in his hands until she was sure he had a hold of it. "Drink it, it should help you-"

Harry took just the smallest of sips, coughing for just a moment at the afterburn of fire whiskey he felt mixed into the potion. Unlike last time when he drank alcohol at the Granger house, he swallowed a larger sip, trying to drown out the horrible sound of Hermione sobbing in the darkness.

A pounding of feet down the stairs echoed as Ron reached the bottom landing out of breath, followed closely by Ginny. "Mum-" his words stalled out when he saw Harry there nursing one of his mother's home remedies "Harry- he took in the way Harry clutched the mug like he wanted to break it. He looked from Harry to his mother "What bloody hell's going on?"

"Hush Ronald!" Mrs. Weasley hissed. she pressed the mug into Harry's hands. "Stay down here, I have to go upstairs-Ginny, you come with me-" she left with a flurry of her apron, Ginny casting a confused/concerned look at Harry and Ron before hurrying after her mother.

Ron approached Harry, looking at his knuckles, now white against the glass, staring at the drink. "You alright? -" When Harry didn't answer, he took another step, leaning down to Harry's sitting down height. "Mate-?"

Harry suddenly stood up and threw the mug against the wall where it hit the wooden beam with a screeching _thunk_ that splattered the potion in a stain on the wall, knocking over a Dublin bowl to the grown with a crash of porcelain. He turned and rounded his fist into a load bearing beam behind the chair he was sitting at it, hitting it with a force that split open his knuckles in a bloody line, repeating the action a second time, then a third.

Ron rushed Harry pulling him away from beam "Harry stop! Leave off!" he pushed him back until he was shoved across the floor behind him. He set a hand on Harry's chest, looking at him, the great heaving breaths that shook his friend's frame, blood dripping in quiet pats against the floor. "Come on, let's go round back- let's _talk-!_ "

Harry pulled himself back from Ron. "I'm not leaving Hermione-"

"Mum's looking out for her upstairs," Ron didn't actually hear this, but it was who he suspected had come with Harry, because she had been so ever since midway in the war. "She'll be fine-"

"They rejected it," Harry's entire body shook from the words. "We went to her parents today – they were finally cleared by St. Muggos- we told them about the baby – and they wanted nothing to do with it-" He watched Ron's expression shift at the weight of what he was saying. He turned kicked the wooden chair nearest to him, cracking the wood. "Hermione disapperated here, and I followed her-" his words were swallowed by a thick mass of air that choked its way into his throat. He laughed, without any feeling, only a dry sound of air. "She should have left with you when she had the bloody chance-"

"They're probably still wonky in the head from the hex Hermione put on them-" Ron said. "You know how good she is at spells"

"They were lucid, Ron!" Harry yelled, "They told her that she should have gotten rid of it, they _blamed_ her because she didn't!" Harry kicked the chair again, and this time he succeeded in cracking off bottom half of the leg. "My parents are dead Ron, my aunt and uncle want nothing more to do with me, but Hermione's family still wanted her back- and I took that from her."

"You're barking!" Ron said "You can't honestly believe that to be true – if it weren't for you, none of us would bloody be here!"

"Exactly, none of us would be here. This is my fault, Ron! Hermione, Fred-" his voice wavered, watching he alchemy it did to Ron's expression at the mention of his dead brother. " _all_ of it is because of me!"

"And I say it isn't!" Ron stepped close to Harry, again. "You didn't do all of this by yourself. Hermione and I have been there from the start, it's on us as much as you."

Harry laughed dryly. "Right good knowing that does anyone, doesn't it? -Sometimes I wish Voldemort should've finished me off-"

"Say that again mate and I'll hex your intestines out your throat. It ain't your bloody fault! The Gangers will just have to come round-"

"And what if they _don't-_?"

"She has us, Harry, she has _you-"_

"I'm not her _parents_ , I'm not her dad, or her mum, and after everything she went through, what will happen to her if she loses them? –she needs them more than me Ron-"

"Maybe so," Ron took another step forward. "But right now, she needs _us_ , if her parents _never_ come round," Ron paused like the answer was too painful for him to bear. "We'll be all she has left. We have to be there for her."

Harry swallowed biting breath that burned down his throat harder than anything he had drunk that night. He toed the broken pieces of china he had thrown with the tip of his shoe. He pulled his wand out of his pocket, a sliding of red blood dripped down his knuckles. With a wave of a silent spell, the shattered porcelain swirled up into the air and fused themselves back together, coming to rest back on the heavy Birchwood tabletop.

Just as he started to turn, he caught the sound of rattling footsteps moving quickly down the staircase. Ginny reached the bottom stair, in her hand was a wooden bowl filled with a yellow tinged liquid that sloshed out the sides from her movements. "Where's the extra store of Viburnuma?" she poured the water down the sink and the yellow liquid turned red from a collection of blood that had settled at the bottom.

"Dad's got it growing down in the cellar-" Ron caught the urgency in Ginny's movement. He stared down at the redness that had collected in a thick stickiness in the basin of the sink. "What's happened-?" Viburnuma?" was an herb their mother would grind into poultices for injuries- the severe kinds that should have warranted a trip to St Muggos, but when there wasn't always money in their account to pay for even a simple Healer's trip.

Ginny didn't answer, pulling her wand out from the front pocket of her jeans. her body evaporating into a swirl as she disapperated from the room and reappeared a moment later clutching a small bundle of skeletal thin plants with dozens of tiny white blooms, and yellow green leaves that curled in on each other like rolled parchment. She quickly "accio'ed" a large serving bowl out from the top of the mullioned glass china cabinet, dropping the plants into the bowl, then levitating a copper kettle from off the stove, pouring steaming water directly over the plants with long gnarled roots.

"Ginny," Harry took in her actions that were almost too fast to follow. "What's going on?"

"Hermione's bleeding-" Ginny cut up the Viburnuma into tiny diced pieces with slashes of her wand, stirring the pieces around in the until it turned the water into a thickened yellow mixture. "She's stared have contractions-"

"She's having them now?!" Ron's shock echoed above the winding staircases above their heads. "She can't- it's too soon, she's not supposed to have it for another few months!"

"Mum's trying to stop it before they get worse-" Ginny levitated a handled strainer over a squat tea mug, doing her best to strain the liquid inside the mug and not all over the floor. "She says if the baby comes now, it may not survive-"

Harry's expression dropped like it was anchored by a stone, his eyes darting hurriedly from the plant mixture to Ginny's face, to the top of the stairs

Ginny was never as great in the kitchen as her mother, and her hands were shaking, half of the contents spilled out onto the sink counter, and some onto the sleeve of her sweater. The concoction was still steaming, so it had to have burned her, but she did not notice. Instead she whirled on Ron with a flip of fiery red hair. "Mum called for a Healer from St Muggo's she's supposed to apparate here, but the ward's still on the house, no one without the Burrow's protection will get more than 100 yards past the clearing-"

"I'll go-" Ron picked up on his sister's words. "Make sure they find it as fast as they can" He turned to Harry with only a backwards glance before he disapperated.

"Come on!" Ginny grabbed Harry's hand, pulling him up the stairs, and he ran with her at a dizzying speed

 **BBBBBBBB**

The door to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's master bedroom stood half open, lit in the glowing kerosene lamp that hung from a nail in the hallway. A rattle emitted from the hammered tin as it shook from the force of Harry and Ginny rushing past it and through the door

Harry pushed the door open with one hand. The thick coppery smell of blood assaulted his nose.

The bedroom was large with a myriad of bookshelves and cubbies shrinking it down to half its size. In center of the room, against a slanted wall was a queen sized bed with brass head and footboard. It was where Mrs. Weasley knelt over Hermione's huddled form bundled in the sheets.

Mrs. Weasley, knelt by Hermione's knees which were raised up like the forks of a pitched tent under the sheets. She had one hand underneath the white muslin and she pulled it back to reveal fingertips coated into blood up to the first crease, she stared at the blood for a long moment, noting how red it was.

Hermione was watching her. "What is it?!-" her voice was shaky and scared and her breathing was erratic. "What's wrong"

"Breathe love," Molly wiped the blood away on her apron, reaching out over the bed to grasp one of Hermione's hands. "Just breathe- everything's going to be alright-"

"Hermione-" Harry nearly dropped the cup he was holding, as he rushed into the bedroom.

Mrs. Weasley raised her head at the sound of his voice, eying the cup in his hand. "Is that the Viburnuma? -Pass it here, I need all but four mouthfuls" Harry's hands were shaking on the cup and several drops spilled out onto the floor.

Mrs. Weasley took up her wand in one hand and remove a beaded line of the liquid from out the cup, levitating it over to a clean towel, where it soaked into a brown and yellow stain. "Give her the rest-" Mrs. Weasley's "Have her swallow it all-" She picked up the rag soaked in the potion and lifted the sheet, placing it up against Hermione's body.

The potion soaked rag hit Hermione's body with a cold jolt that made her jump, lancing a hot pain up her legs and back, making her arch up off the mattress with a cry.

"Hermione," Harry gripped her arm, pushing his way behind her, feeling how cold with sweat her body was. He held the cup of potion to her mouth "drink this," it'll be okay-I promise"

Hermione reached out with a shaky hand and swallowed the contents of the cup. It was bitter going down, choking her.

"It's okay, just a little bit more," Harry's voice shook as much as hers, he rubbed the skin of her arm with a trembling hand.

"Please," Hermione's voice was pain filled as she choked down the last bitter tasting liquid. "please not now, please-" A hot fire of pain made her scream and drop the cup, sending it shattering to the floor.

A rush of blood spilled out of her, soaking the white sheets a stain of red, dripping onto the floor. The pain became blindingly hot, ripping her apart like she was made of wet paper. Then, it all just stopped, replaced with a numbing coolness, that dragged her down into a graying darkness.

"Oh, thank Merlin, the bleeding's stopping-" Mrs. Weasley's voice was a haze. "Harry, is she awake?"

Hermione's world was reduced to voices that wavered in and out like the knobs being played with on an old radio dial.

"I don't know-" Harry's voice was shaky, she felt him touch her hair, and she shifted her head towards the movement. "Yes," his voice became relieved, triumphant. "Yes- she's awake."

"Mum, the Healer's here-"

" _Is she awake?"_ A new female voice entered with the others.

"She fainted once, but she's starting to come round-" Mrs. Weasley.

" _How much blood loss?"_

"At least two bowlfuls, I managed to stop it with Viburnuma-"

" _Give her this-she needs to regain her lost blood-"_ there was a clang of glass bottles a sensation of something cold, drawing her out of her haze, back into the world.

"Hermione?" the voice belonged to Ron, who she saw in a blurry haze standing by the door of the bedroom.

" _Hermione?_ " the Healer's voice was flabbergasted. "Surely this is not Hermione _Granger?"_

"What ruddy difference does it make?" Ron shouted by the door.

"Ron, that's enough!" Molly said.

The world drew back into focus for Hermione to see the Healer sitting on the bed, her face inches from her own. She was striking middle-aged witch in dark purple robes and hair as black as pitch wound in one long braid down her back. She looked from Hermione to Harry, noticing for the first time the glasses that he wore, the scar on his head.

"And this is, no doubt, Harry Potter-" the Healer paused, looking between them both again. "This lends the answer to the question that I had about the father of this child-" The witch a hand on Hermione's arm, feeling along the blue vein under the skin of her wrist. She pulled a wand out from under her robes and rested it along the top of Hermione's stomach, drawing down to press the handle end of her wand to her ear. She listened to the sensations that both produced with closed eyes. She opened them after a breath of five seconds, looking to Hermione. "The heartbeat is there-the child still lives-"

All the air seemed to rush out of Hermione at once, deflating her like a balloon, sending her ears ringing. From behind her she heard Mrs. Weasley's gasp and her _"Oh thank heavens!"_

The Healer removed her hand off Hermione's wrist and lowered her wand off her stomach. "You're a very lucky woman Ms. Granger, Thank Merlin, Mrs. Weasley is adept at her potions, or it would have been too late I arrived-" She reached under her robes producing a leather satchel, much resembling an old doctor's traveling bag. She opened the bag with a snap of brass handles, waving her wand over the opening. Out levitated two bottles of black glass with crisp white labels: _"Blood Regrow Use only under Healer Supervision_. She flicked her wand, causing the bottles to flip over upside down. Each bottle one was connected by a plastic tubing that joined in the middle with a Y formation. At the end of the joined tubing was a gleaming silver needle "Hold still my dear, you've lost quite a bit of blood-" She hovered the tubing over Hermione's arm, sliding the needle effortlessly into the vein by her elbow with another flick of her wand. "I picked this up from my study abroad at a St. Andrews Muggle Hospital," a roll of cloth bandage floated out from her bag and went underneath Hermione's arm, going over the needle, then tying itself of neatly. "The needle is a bit crude compared to a spell, but, it's still effective, especially since I doubt you'll be able to swallow this much potion tonight." She waited a moment, like she wanted to make sure Hermione was settled before standing up off the bed. "You appear to be out of the woods now, Ms. Granger," her words were weighted, like her statement came with a stipulation. "I'll be back in two days' time to check up on your progress- I don't want one _toe_ of yours out of this bed until I return. You suffered a terrible trauma, your health and your baby's health is still precarious, you both need _rest_ , am I clear?"

Hermione's heartbeat was pounding in her ears, the air was cold and hot at the same time, all she could do was manage a nod of her head.

The Healer turned to Mrs. Weasley. "Once the potion bottles are empty, you can remove the needle, and cover the area with a bandage. Mr. Potter lived with Muggles, he should be able to help you-"

"Yes, of course, thank you-" Molly said to the witch as she folded her wand into her robe. "My son will see you out-"

The Healer waved off the offer. "Don't bother, it's been a long day for everyone, I'll let myself out as far as the marsh and disaperate from there. " She gave a respectful nod to Mrs. Weasley, then to the others watching her. "Good night," the witch walked out of the door with a swish of her robes

Once the witch had left, Molly bustled her way back to the bed, setting a hand on Hermione's damp hair. "We've got to change those wet sheets and your clothes. Harry-" Molly gestured for Harry to stand up, before looking against Hermione. "No need to move, I'll spell everything around you." Molly removed her wand from her apron pocket, but before she could Hermione reached out and gripped her wrist.

"Thank you," her voice was soft, scarred.

Molly's eyes glistened in an aching sadness that she felt from the girl. She reached down and took her face in her hands, kissing the top of her head. "You're welcome love." She looked over to Ron and Harry. "I'll let you know once we've gotten everything settled, alright?"

Both Ron and Harry were reluctant to move, but it was Ron who took the initiative, speaking softly to Harry. "Come on, Mate-"

Harry sat once again on the edge of the bed, looking down at Hermione, gripping her hands. "You alright? -"

Her hands were trembling in his, her eyes were a spider web of red exhaustion. "I'll be fine-"

She looked no older than the 11-year-old girl he had met on the train, the one who had chosen to befriend him no matter the cost.

Harry took her face in his hands in the same manner that Mrs. Weasley did, feeling her watching him. He leant forward, kissing her brief but deeply, pulling back to rest his forehead against hers, sighing in a way that ached, feeling her fingers close up around his wrist. He pulled back, feeling her watching him with the same sort of ache. "I'll be downstairs, okay?"

She smiled, but the hurt in her eyes pushed through the bravado she was trying to put up, and he wished for nothing more than to give back everything he had taken from her.

He stood up, and she reached for his hand one last time, holding onto it until he was no longer close enough to reach her, watching as he left out the bedroom door.


	3. Chapter 3

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" _I get lost in the beauty,_

 _Of everything I see, the world ain't half as bad,_

 _As they paint it to be_

 _If all the sons, if all the daughters,_

 _Start to take it in,_

 _Well hopefully the hate subsides, and the love can begin…"_

OneRepublic feat. Sara Baraellias "Come Home"

 **BBBBBBB**

A knot formed its way into two loose strings at the front of the white night dress on its own, the soft fabric tickling against the flesh of Hermione's neck.

"It's one of Ginny's," Mrs. Weasley finished tying the drawstring into a bow, closing the nightgown against Hermione's chest, casting a brief glance at her daughter who was bundling the soiled sheets they had removed from Mrs. Weasley's bed. " Does it fit alright? I've added some extra fabric in the front and in the sleeves, Ginny hasn't worn it in ages-"

The gown was cream colored, made up of a delicate soft Batiste cotton with quarter sleeves capped off with delicate embroidered lace. It was something Hermione knew Ginny had abandoned when she had turned 13, labeling it as being "too girly and old fashioned", and had turned in favor of flannel pajama pants and sleep camisoles. But it was soft against her body, and smelled faintly and the musk of the trunk it had been stored in for safe keeping, and even more surprisingly, of the gardenia perfume Ginny had worn when first experimenting with perfumes at all.

"Yes," Hermione was unable to say more to Mrs. Wesley for a long moment, looking at the bloody sheets Ginny was rolling into a tight ball, tying them off at the ends to deal with later. "I don't want to put you out of your room -I can sleep downstairs on the sofas-" she shifted forward, making a move to move off the bed, feeling an ache of pain as she did so.

Her movements were stilled seconds by Mrs. Weasley's hand on her chest. "You most certainly will _not_ Hermione Granger, now lie back down this instant."

Hermione's movement stilled under Mrs. Weasley's hand, and she pressed her back into the clean sheeted pillows behind her, trying to mask the guilt at putting the Weasley's through all of this.

Mrs. Weasley either didn't notice Hermione's expression or she chose to ignore it. Instead, she walked to a wardrobe made of blonde Ashwood that sat against the left wall next to a window that overlooked the field and garden at the back of the Burrow. The wardrobe had twin doors, each carved with intricate designs of Gryffindor's in flight against a cloud filled sky. "You heard the Healer," she reached inside the wardrobe, pulling out a cappuccino colored down comforter. "You're to remain in bed, and that's where you're _staying_.Author and I will take the sofas, and I want no more arguments about it," She walked back to the bed, shaking out the comforter with a flutter of the thick fabric. "You've been through a trying ordeal love, the only thing I want you doing right now, is _resting_." She tucked the blanket around Hermione's body, moving up to tuck a strain of loose hair behind her ear. "I'm going to take these soiled things downstairs, alright? I'll only be a moment, then I'll be back to make sure you're all settled in for the night-" Molly glanced up at the upside-down bottles of Blood Regrow potion, then snaked her gaze across the path of the tubing that wound its way over the sheets and ended at the needle in Hermione's arm. She stared at the entire set up like she didn't trust it to not hurt Hermione, but like she had no real proof of it not being effective, so she left it alone.

"Ginny dear-" Molly held her arm out, waving at Ginny to pass her the bundle of bloodied sheets.

Ginny handed off the soiled sheets to her mother, watching as Mrs. Weasley walked out, leaving her and Hermione alone.

"Do you need anything else?" Ginny asked. "I could make some tea-"

Hermione shook her head. "No, it's fine-"

Ginny stared at the potion bottle and tubing going into Hermione's arm much in the same manner her mother had, wincing when her eyes reached the needle. "Muggles have a very barking way to deliver potions to people-" she picked up the tubing between her fingers, but was afraid doing so would make something go wrong, so she set it back down on the bed. "Does it hurt?"

"Not really, no-" Hermione said. "I had to have my tonsils removed in a Muggle Hospital when I was nine and had one in then too, it's more irritating than painful. It's nothing at all compared to what just happened-" her voice stalled out, she swallowed and looked down at her swollen stomach. 

Ginny walked over to the bed, and sat down, tucking one leg up under her, reaching Hermione's hand. "You're going to be fine, you and the baby both. Mum's helped with midwifery with all our neighbors for years. There's a small lot in rural Sussex who can't afford St. Muggos; she's never been unsuccessful with her healing-"

"Your mum's wonderful," Hermione said. "She saved my life." Her voice faded away again. like a shadow that had been snuffed out from darkness. "-Do you think they hate me? My mum and dad? - for what I did?" she spoke barely above a whisper, a minute trembling thing, afraid of the answer she would receive.

Ginny squeezed Hermione's hand harder. "You didn't do anything wrong. You can't help how you and Harry felt about each other when all this happened. You love each other-"

Hermione shook her head, eyes tightly closed. "You didn't see their faces, they were so _angry_ with me. I oblivated their memories, I left them without a word almost a year, then I came back home and dropped all this on them. I can't say I blame them-"

Ginny scooted closer, "I think they're scared, they just don't how to process all you went through-they don't hate you-"

"I hope so."

When the initial shock of fear and pain had cleared after the War, Hermione did not know where she fit with the Weasley's. She had turned away Ron, had chosen Harry over him without meaning too, had set all of this in motion. And Ginny – Ginny had been in love with Harry, had loved Harry long before Hermione had realized that she had. They had never meant for it to happen – to love each other the way they did, they had just been so lonely, and sad and scared, and they were all they had for months. After the Battle, she was afraid Ginny would hate her, that she would lose another friend to the war.

But Ginny hadn't left her. It had taken time for her to be around either of them, especially Hermione had started to fully show in her pregnancy, but she had come around, and she and Ginny had ultimately grown closer because of it.

Hermione's utterance was such a small, lonely sounding statement, coming from someone that Ginny had long ago deemed as a sister over a friend. She dropped Hermione's hand and reached out to embrace her.

Hermione turned her face into Ginny's shoulder, admits her friend's long ginger hair, tightly hugging her back.

 **BBBBBBBB**

**[** _"Hermioine what is it? What's wrong?_

 _Her eyes were wide on his, as she stared at him, the trembling evident in her hands. The wind howled outside the flaps of their tent. "Harry- I- think I might be pregnant-"_

 _She tracked his expression, the shock, the fear. Her eyes began to tear. "I'm sorry-"_ **]**

"Do you reckon she'll be okay? - she looked so ill-"

"Your mother's very adept at healing Ron, she'll have Hermione sorted out-"

 **[** _He listened to the sound of her being sick onto the packed snow outside. He pulled back the tent flap just as she stood back up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand that was covered in a blood-stained bandage. It had been gift from having to fend off a gnarled tangle of enchanted elm roots that had long ago been bewitched to ensnare unsuspecting people to protect what had once been stored deep inside the hollow trunk of the tree. Whatever had been inside had been looted out, the unmistakable smell of burned flesh from the attack of a Death Eater that had forced the spell caster to open his hiding place. But the enchantment had stayed, fighting for a treasure that no longer remained.]_

"I still don't understand why her mum and dad would _do_ that to her? How would they have felt if she lost it?"

" _Ron,"_ Mr. Weasley's voice hushed his son, giving a brief nod over to the sofa by the fire.

 **[** _ **"**_ _Hermione," Harry dropped to his knees by the edge of the cot where Hermione sat shaking after having pulled him out of the frozen water. The sword of Gryffindor lay in a heap on the ground by her feet._

 _Ron stood over the cot shuddering, his clothes soaked through with water so cold that bits of frost clung to the wool of his sodden sweater,_

" _Hermione-" Harry's words were shocked, scared, seeing how much she was shaking. "Why did you do that?"_

" _You were in trouble," Hermione's voice stuttered with tremors. "both of you," her eyes moved up to Ron. Her body moved in jerks on the cot, bits of ice crystals had formed in her damp hair._

" _Bloody Hell-!" Ron hurried to his old cot and snatched all the extra blankets off them, throwing them over her in a heap. "Hermione, you're barking! -"_

 _She closed the first blanket layer around herself. "I couldn't let you both drown-" her voice waved in and out in shudders. "And the sword-" she reached down and picked up the ruby encased hilt of the sword of Godric Gryffindor. "We had to have the sword or there'd be no hope to kill the remaining Horcruxes-" the sword clattered out of her hand, and she curled in on herself._

" _Hermione-!" Harry rubbed her arms with his hands, eyes moving lower from her face, covering his hand over her abdomen, afraid of the consequences of what she had done._

" _It's alright," her voice had fallen to just above a whisper. "It'll be alright"_ **]**

"Mum would have never done that, neither would you-"

 **[** _Hermione's scream filled the Weasley's bedroom, her face contorted in agony, blood pooling from her body. Harry held onto her, terrified, terrified he was watching her die._ **]**

" _They don't want it- what am I supposed to do?!- Oh Harry-"_ **]**

" **Harry?"**

Harry pulled back in a jerk at the contact, the cup and saucer he had been holding dropping with an ear-splitting crack to the floorboards, spilling out hot amber colored tea.

Ron jumped back from the noise. "Oi, Harry! -You alright?"

"Sorry-" Harry looked from Ron to Mr. Weasley, both of whom were staring at him with concern on their faces. "Sorry, I'm fine- it's fine-" He jumped up from his seat and began gathering up the puddle of spilled tea and porcelain shards with his hands.

"It's alright Harry," Mr. Weasley knelt between Harry and the mess, "I've got it-" He raised his hand over the spill and the broken cup repaired itself, the spilled tea siphoning up into the tip of his wand, before erupting back into the cup, steaming hot. He held to the tea cup and set a hand on Harry's arm, pulling him to his feet.

"I'll pay for anything I've broken-"

"Don't be daft Mate," Ron insisted. "We can always get more ruddy dishes."

Mr. Weasely waved him off as well. "They're cups and saucers my boy, I care about the mending of _people_ more." Harry now stood in front of him, he had grown so that his height nearly matched his own, only off by an inch or so. Mr. Weasley took this in, remembering the small, wide eyed 11-year-old boy who had first stood in his home. Even now, standing before him as a grown man, Mr. Weasely could still see that boy.

"When Molly was a month away from delivering Ron, - she was exhausted, Fred and George were driving her mad, I was working long hours at the Ministry, she accused me of not being there enough to help her. We got into a spat, and I went to my shed to tinker with my Muggle contraptions. About half an hour later Charlie and Bill came running out of the house with a yell- Fred had thrown a handful of Exploding Snaps into the stove and caught the whole kitchen on fire. I could see Molly with George in her arms, pushing him and Percy through a hole she had cracked in the glass. By the time I got there, smoke was pouring out of that hole from the kitchen, and Molly was too big to fit through-" Mr. Weasely stopped talking for a moment and closed his eyes. "When I got her out, she had been burned all along her hands and up her arms where she had snatched Fred and Percy away from the flames-" I thought for a moment I had lost her."

"It wasn't your fault" Harry said. "You had no idea what would've happened."

"And this isn't _your_ fault, Harry, or Hermione's," Mr. Weasley placed both hands on either of Harry's shoulders. "You, _all_ of you, have endured unspeakable things-" he glanced over at Ron who was watching him. "Things no one should have to live through. You had to survive– you can't keep blaming yourself for needing each other. You also have to remember that parents, be they Wizard or Muggle, are human, and are subject to fallibility-because they love their children so much-" there was an echoed longing in Mr. Weasely's voice for the child that he had lost in the Battle, the mention of Fred's name an ache in his absence. "This is what makes them _good_ parents-"

The sound of footsteps above them raised Harry, Ron, and Mr. Weasely's eyes over to the wooden staircase that was tucked behind an enormous Evergreen pine that ascended two floors high, hung with candles bewitched with a soft golden light.

Molly walked down the staircase slowly, with exhausted sounding steps, Ginny a few paces behind her. The pair of them came into the living room where both Harry and Ron immediately met them.

"She's finally fallen asleep," Molly said to Harry and her son's gazes.

"Is she alright?" Ron asked his mother.

"We'll know more in the morning," Mrs. Weasley's words were an exhausted elusiveness, she moved to stand beside her husband, who set his arm around her. "The thing she needs right now is rest." She eyed Harry, Ginny and Ron with a scrutinizing gaze. "Bill and Fleur, and George and Angelina will all be here in the morning," her voice hung like a nail on the absence of Fred's name after before George's. "Christmas is in two days and I need everyone in sound condition to help prepare. That means, that what _everyone_ needs right now, is rest-Harry you can take Ron's spare bed, I've already made it up-No, not another argument," she said this of Harry's look- "you're exhausted and need to sleep."

Harry had long ago realized that disagreeing with Molly would be futile. So, he merely nodded.

 **BBBBBB**

The Burrow breathed in its sleep. The chime of the grandfather clock in the living room announcing the midnight hour. The enchanted flames on the Christmas tree popped on their wooden wicks, water dripped onto the dishes in the sink from a leak in the faucet.

The light from the candles illuminated the sofa where Mrs. Weasely shifted on the cushions, her eyes open under the glow of the tree. Mr. Weasley, who was lying behind her set his arm across her waist.

"Everything will be fine my dear," he pressed a kiss near her ear and she drew closer to him, drawing his hands to hers, kissing his fingers.

Above them on the third level, the floorboards creaked along a worn path that had been traced from the master bedroom to each of the Weasley children's bedrooms. Along the path that led down from Ron's attic bedroom, Harry stepped over the floorboards, still dressed in his jeans and sweater, feet bare, the tip of his wand lit in front of him. When he reached the Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's bedroom door, he pushed it open with a soft, gentle creak that reverberated in the gray darkness.

He moved through the darkness past the wardrobe, and the 6-drawer dresser where framed pictures of the Weasely's cluttered the surface next to small glass bottles of Mrs. Wesley's perfumes and potions. There was one of a young Mr. and Mrs. Weasley taken on their wedding day, both were laughing and waving at someone out of frame on the left side. Beside this picture was one with the Weasely kids when Bill and Charlie were still in Hogwarts, looking no older than 13 and 14 years old. Then came newer ones, including images of him and Hermione with Ron during their summer holidays. There was also one taken at Bill and Fleur's wedding framed in crystal glass. Next to this one, was the last picture, an image in a circular tin frame. Fred and George's smiling faces were displayed prominently in front of their new joke shop in Diagon Alley. After a count of two seconds, a puff of purple smoke filled the frame and both twins laughed inside their picture.

Harry moved past the dresser, drawing closer to the bed. Hermione lay her back, half propped up on four pillows, wearing a thin cotton nightgown. Her long hair was damp with sweat, and fell in clumps around her neck and shoulders. Her right arm lay at her side, the needle of the makeshift IV held down by the cloth bandage the Healer had placed there to secure it.

Her breathing was steady, but shallow sounding, like she wasn't deeply asleep, or she was in pain.

Harry reached down and closed his fingers around her right hand, she didn't move. He hovered his free hand other above her stomach, afraid to lower it for a moment, afraid of not being able to feel anything when he did. His fingertips ghosted closer to her, her eyes opened, blinking once in the light of his wand that had traveled across her face.

"Harry? -" Her voice was thick like a skein of newly spun yarn.

"I didn't mean to wake you up-" Harry lowered the hand that was reaching out to touch her. He was still not proficient at where and Hermione stood in all of this. It wasn't that he didn't love her, it was more that he was now only figuring out what kind of love it was. It left him confused, content, and scared all at the same time. "I just wanted to make sure everything was alright-"

Hermione studied him in the glow of his wand light. She drew herself up to a sitting position, reaching, not to take the hand he had lowered to the mattress, but the one that held his wand. She drew the wand closer to her body, saying the same spell the Healer had used earlier. The light of Harry's wand extinguished itself, but a swishing procession of ' _thud, thud, thud'_ echoed fast and loudly in the darkness of the room.

Hermione felt Harry's fingers squeeze her hand tightly, heard his breath exhale in a hitch, his green eyes wide in the shadowed darkness.

Her own heartbeat was beating in her chest, an ache in her breastbone, a feeling that was both sweet and painful enough to drown in.

She reached out, pulling his head down towards her and he followed her movements. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, sliding her arms up around his neck.

He sat down at the edge of the bed, setting his wand down on the duvet, drawing his legs up over the mattress. She pushed forward to allow him space on the other side, turning her body towards him. He opened his arm and she set her head on his chest, feeling his heart beating against her ear.

"I love you Hermione."

His voice came on the end of a breath that blew in puffs on her eyes, something he had never outright told her.

The pain in her chest intensified, spreading hotly through the rest of her body. Tears slid down her eyes and nose, landing in patters against his shirt. "I love you too Harry."


	4. Chapter 4

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" _The best thing to hold onto in life, is each other"_

-Audrey Hepburn

 **BBBBB**

Morning came with a wintery gray sun and a call of songbirds that could survive the English winter. The cold had frosted over the windows, fogging up the world outside. Molly stared out the picture window in her bedroom, watching one bird of a brilliant blue as it lit into the sky, a flying piece of color against all the gray. She turned back towards in house, to Hermione, who was still asleep in the early morning. Harry lay asleep beside her, his arm hanging around her shoulders, her head tucked into chest.

She stepped over to them examining the potion bottles that levitated upside down above the bed. Both were empty and no potion came through the tubing. She raised her wand, gently extracting the needle from Hermione's arm, placing a bandage on it a second later. Hermione moved, but did not seem to wake completely.

Mrs. Weasley set a hand in Hermione's hair and she stilled, Harry did not move at all. She tucked the comforter up more over them both before walking out of her bedroom.

 **BBBBBBB**

"Lucy?-"

Peter's voice traveled down the stairs as he ascended them. He reached the bottom step, hearing a rustle of paper. "Lucy?" he called his wife's name again, walking towards the source of the noise. He found the armchair that normally took residence by the fireplace moved all the way against the wall beside the fireplace. In its place was the 6-foot evergreen tree a friend from his office had brought over last week. They had left it out on their back porch, not even bothering to undo the twine that held the branches together.

The air smelled heady, pine needles carpeted the floor, crunching underfoot as he drew closer to his wife. The sofa was covered in opened cardboard boxes that they stored their Christmas ornaments in, wrapped in old tissue paper; it was this that was the source of the noise he heard. Lucinda had her back turned to him, unwrapping delicate glass balls fired an orange gold, from the different colored paper.

"Darling-" Peter said. "You didn't need to do this now-"

"We always have a tree," She hung the orange ball on one of the branches among others in colors of maroon, gold and silver, ones she had scoured the stores for after Hermione had been sorted into Gryffindor. "I just haven't had time to get around to it until now."

Peter placed a hand on her shoulder on her shoulder.

Lucinda didn't react and instead returned to the box of ornaments, unwrapping another from it's nest of white paper. Inside wasn't another maroon or gold ball, but a flat piece of pine, covered with popsicle sticks to form a frame and spray painted in gold, bearing a neatly printed cursive handwritten: _"Happy Christmas"_ across the top. It was a small frame, and inside it was a school picture of Hermione at 10-years-old. Lucinda held the ornament up. "You remember this one? She made it her last year at Primary," a smile came to her. "She taught herself how to do calligraphy to make it look more 'polished-'"

Peter smiled too at the memory, "She's always been an overachiever, wasn't that the same year her Hogwarts letter came by that ruddy owl?"

Lucinda shook her head, a quiet laugh escaping her. "She was so proud, she wanted to start buying all her school supplies right then, and her _wand_ , she talked of nothing else, for weeks." She closed her hand around the ornament, sliding her finger over the picture, her laughter died away like leaking carbonization from a soda. "I can't understand why she hasn't called-"

Peter reached out and squeezed his wife's shoulder. "I'm sure everything's alright. She's resourceful-"

"She's _pregnant,"_ Lucinda corrected. "Our daughter is pregnant, and we threw her out!"

"We didn't throw her out Lucy," Peter returned. "She walked out on her own-" the anger in his words was only surface level, barely covering the concern for the whereabouts and safety of his only child.

Lucinda's face crumpled. "We should've made her stay, we should've _talked_ to her! What if something has happened?"

"It hasn't," Peter set his other hand on his his's wife opposite shoulder, turning her to look at him. "Don't you think like that. She needed to sort this out, just like us-"

"I just want her home," Lucinda's voice was quavering, trying to vanish the last pain filled image of Hermione running out of the door and into the night.

A rapping knock came from the front door, startling them both.

Peter lowered his hand and checked his watch, noting that it was barely past 8 in the morning, as well as noting the fact that he and his wife were both still wearing their bathrobes.

The knocking continued. Peter walked out of the living room and to the foyer, opening the door.

The form of Molly Weasley, Hermione's wizard friend Ron Weasely's mother, stood on the front stoop, in a purple knitted shawl and red beret, clutching a small handbag under her arm.

"Good morning," Molly's voice was polite and apologetic. "I'm sorry to just drop by like this-"

Lucinda heard Molly's voice from the living room and hurried towards the door.

"Molly-" she pushed her way past her husband, staring at the other woman with wide, pleading eyes. "Hermione, where is she-? Do you know where she went?!-"

"She's alright," Molly reassured. "She's staying with us-"

Lucinda closed her eyes, her body deflating in visible relief. "Thank god-" she opened her eyes. "How is she? Is she _really_ alright?"

"Yes," Molly returned, watching the other woman almost fold in on herself in relief. "She is now-"

Peter's eyebrow lowered. "What do you mean _now?"_

"What happened?" Lucinda's voice tripped over her husband's, her eyes wide in shock.

Molly looked around at the rows of other houses, at the small gathering of neighbors out in their front yards, then back to the Grangers. "I think it's best if we talk inside."

"Yes of course," Lucinda pulled the door open all the way, moving aside so Molly could enter. "Come in-!"

Mrs. Weasley moved past the foyer and into the living room, but did not sit because of all the boxes that littered the sofa and chairs.

"I'm sorry," Lucinda made a move to grab the boxes and remove them from the sofa, spilling out several pairs of Christmas balls onto the sofa cushions.

"It's alright-" Molly held her hand. "I've raised 4 boys, I'm quite used to messes-"

Lucinda gave one last shove of the boxes to move the ornaments to a cluttered heap on one end of the sofa, not knowing what to do with her hands until Molly reached out and covered one with hers in leather gloves still cold from outside.

"What's this about Hermione-?" Peter asked. "You said something happened?"

Molly still didn't sit down, "She and Harry came to us last night. She was in pain and bleeding," She tried to keep her voice neutral, she was not here to condemn the Grangers.

Lucinda covered a hand over her mouth. "Oh God," she became dizzy for a moment, falling back until she sat in a heap on the arm of the sofa. "The baby? -"

"I was able to stop the bleeding with a potion in time, I've midwifed for some of our poorer neighbors for years. The Healer that came from St. Muggos was also able to find a proper heartbeat – everyone is alright now."

Lucinda drew in a gasp of a breath "This is our fault-" tears fell from her eyes. "She came here last night and we- we told her we couldn't accept it-We were so _angry_ with her, she ran out-"

"This is _not_ your fault!" Molly reached out for Lucinda's hands, and squeezed them. "You were totally unprepared for this- so was I-" she looked down at their joined hands, to give herself a moment's pause before meeting Lucinda Granger's eyes again. "My son was killed- barely three months ago, in the war." Molly's hands shook, and her voice grew thick. "For weeks, after, I could not walk into his old bedroom, or out in the yard where he used to practice flying with his brothers-" her expression crumpled, and she drew in a breath before she drowned in it. "He was fighting off a Death Eater that was attacking another student. I blamed him-I was so _angry_ at him-for putting himself in harm's way, for being so _foolish-"_ She drew in a sharp breath, sorting out all the pain until it became something that she could manage talking through. "My boy was a lot of things: foolish, stubborn, but he was also kind, and loyal to his friends, I don't think he could've just watched another student die and do nothing to stop it. Hermione is the same, she couldn't let Harry fight out there his own. The things they survived-things they were far too young for any of it. If they didn't have each other," Molly's voice stilled. "I don't want to think about what would've happened."

"We thought she'd died," Peter said, his voice reaching the conversation like the crack of ice from a split in a glacier. "After our memory came back, we heard no news for _weeks_ , we-" he glanced over at his wife. "We feared the worst- we were just _shocked-_ We never expected-" he took a long breath. "We love our daughter-"

Molly looked up from Lucinda over to Peter Granger, an understanding look of a parent passing between them. "I never doubted for a moment you did."

"We-we just don't know what to do," Lucinda said, speaking through a lacework of her fingers at her mouth, her voice like a wisp blowing in the wind "Nothing is the same anymore-"

"No, it's not," Molly's voice was resigned, sad, honest. "But we have to go somewhere from here, don't we?"

 **BBBB**

"Are these okay?" Harry held out a wrinkled gray tunic sweater and a pair of jeans that he had just pulled out of the beaded bag she had carried around with her during the length of War.

Hermione nodded, watching as he walked the clothes over to her, setting them into her outstretched hands. "I cast a stretching spell on all my clothes when they started becoming too small-" she gave him a half smile, looking down at the state of her figure, fingering the denim and wool in her lap. "I know I'm meant to be in bed, I just can't stay in night clothes all day-"

"You don't have to explain," Harry told her, watching her cast him a half shrugging smile, like it was such a common occurrence. "Do you need some help?"

Hermione looked at him silently for half a second before, giving just the faintest of nods. She pulled back the covers and placed a hand on her stomach, sliding her legs up over the bed. Harry came around to the side of the bed. She placed her hand on his back, reaching the other hand down to step into and pull one of the legs of the jeans onto her leg under the nightgown, getting it on about halfway before her balance teetered.

"Here," He reached out and repositioned both of her hands so that they rested on his shoulders, reaching down to pull the pant leg up the rest of the way on her body.

"I'm sorry-" she felt badly for making him do this for her.

"It's okay-" Harry said. He took hold of the other side of her jeans, fanning out the opening in the bottom of the leg, she slid her bare leg into it and pulled the fabric up to her waist. "Alright?"

She nodded and released his shoulders to button and zip up the jeans. Even though they appeared least three sizes too small for her when Harry had pulled them out, they now stretched to accommodate the fullness of her stomach.

She reached down and pulled up the hem of the night gown up over her head, backing up to sit back down on the bed in a cream laced bra. Under her right breast going down to just below her navel was a curved raised red scar, a present from Bellatrix's Lestrange in Malfoy Manor.

She had only just discovered she was pregnant, and so had Bellatrix, in some way Hermione had given it away, and the Death Eater had pinned her down, dagger at her throat. breathing hotly in her ear.

 **[** _"What is this?" she ran bare knuckled gnarled hands over Hermione's shirt, as Hermione writhed under her on cold marble floor. She sniffed Hermione's bare skin. "The Chosen One's little whore?"_ _Her lips pulled back into a sneer, she produced a knife from the folds of her black dress. "Tell me what you and your bastard's father took from my vault or I shall . out. of you-" she traced the blade of the dagger, along Hermione's shirt._

 _Hermione shuddered under her grip. "We didn't take anything-please, we didn't take anything!"_

 _Bellatrix pressed her mouth right next to Hermione's eyes. "I don't believe you," she slashed the knife into Hermine's skin. Hermione closed her eyes and screamed, blood soaking the cotton of her shirt._ **]**

Hermione picked up the sweater off the bed and pulled it on, concealing the scar under soft wool. A ripple of movement set her hand across her stomach.

Harry looked at her in concern "Are you alright?"

Hermione nodded, blowing out a breath "The baby's moving like mad-" she pulled one of her legs back up on the bed.

Harry reached down and drew her other leg up so that she was back to sitting up on the bed.

"I suspect it's a good thing, it means it's okay," Hermione settled back against the pillows, looking down at her abdomen.

Harry set his hand on top of hers, rubbing at her stomach with the pad of his thumb.

"We've never really talked about it-" Hermione looked up to him. "About what we want it to be."

"There was never really an appropriate time for that sort of thing was there?"

She gave him a sort of sad look of affirmation.

"It really doesn't matter to me," He said. "So long as it's healthy, and doesn't have to fight off any Dark Lords before age 11."

"And smart," She added.

"You're the mum Hermione," Harry reminded. "Smart isn't an attribute that'll be called into question."

Hermione allowed herself a moment of real laughter, that came like something unused after a long time.

The door opened with a squeak, Ron stood on the other side. "Hermione-" his voice was full of relief, at seeing her awake and sitting up. "Are you alright?" He walked over to his parents' bed, watching her the entire time.

She nodded at Ron. "I think so," she looked down at her stomach again, then back up to him. "All this is a bit new for me."

"It's bloody new for us too!" Ron blurted out. He looked at her in a moment of guilt for blurting out angrily at her, then reached over and kissed the side of her head. "Don't ruddy scare us like that again!"

Hermione stayed in the embrace for a long moment. "I'll do my best Ronald."

The pair of them broke away and Ron sat down on the end of the bed. "Mum's gone- I heard her disapperate really early from the landing. I think she might have gone to talk to your parents-"

Hermione looked at him for just a moment, like she was startled, but then blinked it away because it wasn't something out of Molly Weasely's character. "I don't see what good it can do- they've already made up their minds-"

"No, they haven't!" Ron said. "Your mum is more smothering than mine, she wouldn't just toss you out!"

"You didn't hear her-" Hermione didn't raise her voice. "She and dad told me off about it-"

What if they were just scared?" Ron countered, glanced down at her pregnant stomach. "This isn't exactly a new cat you're springing on them- they might've thought you _died_. Now they find out you're not only alive but giving them a grandchild—Hermione- that's a _load_ to take in- Just-" his expression softened. "Just give them time," he looked from her over to Harry "Family's too important to just loose."

The bedroom door opened again, pushed by Ginny's foot. In her arms, she held a wooden tray with a plate of brown looking rolls doused white on the top with some sort of sticky cream, a copper teapot, and a stack of empty cups and saucers that rattled and slid against each other.

"A hand would be useful Ron-" Ginny called out.

"You _cooked_?" Ron took the tray from his sister with a look of incredulity, walking with the tray and setting it down on the end of the bed. Ginny wasn't what he called accomplished at cooking.

"Actually, I _baked_ ,"Ginny corrected.

"Baked _what-_?" Ron picked up some of the food on the plate. It was disfigured and lumpy, and charred around the edges, the white icing dripping thinly off his fingers, the edges falling off in blackened pieces onto the tray. "They look like melted rocks."

"They're iced buns," Ginny stated, reaching out to pluck one of them off the top of the pile, dropping it onto a plate. She handed the plate to Hermione, adding in her defense. "I'm not that great at baking-but it's the easiest thing I know how to make-"

"Apparently, you're not great at _all-_ "

" _Ron!"_ Hermione reprimanded. "Don't be mean." she turned her eyes to Ginny. "They look good Ginny, thank you-" she broke off a corner section of the pastry and poised to move it into her mouth.

"Wait-" Ron grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away from her mouth. "You're pregnant, better let Harry taste it first- in case it's spoiled or foul or something."

"Honestly Ron, stop being so thick-" Hermione shook her wrist from his grip and dropped the bread into her mouth just as Ginny reached over and smacked Ron in the back of the head.

Hermione chewed, the bread was well burned on the top, and the icing was watery thin, but it still didn't taste _bad_ ,it was still sweet, with just the smallest amount of raspberry jam in the center. "It's good," She swallowed, and after the first bite, realized how hungry she was. For the first time in a day she didn't feel nauseous, she broke off another section and ate it. "You'll have to teach me how to make them-"

"It's one of mum's old recipes," Ginny removed her wand from her pants pocket, then she turned over the four tea cups, tossing them like baseballs into the air one at a time until they all levitated in the air. "She got it from our great-grandmum on mum's side." She waved her wand at the teapot and it moved over each cup, pouring a heady smelling black tea into each one, then floating them to each person in the room.

Ron took the tea, but waved away the floating plate with the misshapen iced bun on it, not as ready to trust his sister's baking skills the way Hermione had. "I thought Grand mum Rose was one of those old-time ladies with a thousand servants who cooked and cleaned for her, and took her out to the loo"

"She was," Ginny said. "But she still liked to do things for herself. Apparently, she thought taking a day off from degrading the servants to do some half ass attempts at baking would help her become more distinguished."

"My aunt Petunia was like that too," Harry stated. "She was always trying to impress the lackies at Uncle Vernon's drill company. Never really worked much- Hermione, are you okay?" Harry watched Hermione set a hand to her stomach and blowing out a hard breath.

Hermione nodded around her closed eyes, but continued to rub her stomach in long circular strokes and she breathed out a shaky and long breath.

Ginny watched her do this. "Maybe we should go- let you get some more rest."

"No-" Hermione said. "No, it's alright- really I'm fine-"

"You sure?" Harry asked, watching her expression, trying to discern if she was just trying to put up an act like she had done when she was 12 and didn't want to admit that she was wrong about something. But, like then, Harry was unable to tell, because of how proficient Hermione had become at masking her emotions.

"Positive-" her hand stilled, but still rested at the top of her stomach. "I think it's just all the excitement and noise. Mum told me I did the same thing when she carried me-I suspect it runs in the family" she offered him a wan smile before it dropped away at the mention of her mother.

"Hermione, you should be taking it easy," Ron insisted, eyeing her critically, not like he expected her to keel over at any given second, but with concern for the frequency of how much she had been in pain in the last day and a half. "You were ill not twenty-four hours ago-"

Her eyes snapped up to his "I'm not _ill_ , Ron!" Her rebuke was a sharp stinging thing. She watched the change come over his expression, the way he drew back from just slightly. "I'm sorry-" She said this to Ron, but her eyes moved over to everyone in the room. "I know you all mean well, but I can't just _sit_ here-I'll go mad-" her expression melted away from anger. She didn't want to stay here alone with her own thoughts, hearing the words of her parents echo in her head repeatedly. The ache in her chest began to rise again, she blinked and looked down at her hand, her voice small. "Please don't ask me too."

Harry reached over and grasped one of her hands, intertwining his fingers with hers. "Alright."

She lifted her eyes to his, looking at him gratefully.

 **BBBBB**

The snow had begun to fall harder, turning the landscape outside pure white. Thick piles of it clung to the branches of the fur trees, clumping up in piles along the trunk, and piling up like small mountains out in the yard and along the edges of the house. Out in the yard, the grass was completely encased in snow, and every few seconds' piles of snow began to shift. Out from some of these these piles emerged fat garden gnomes in yellow and red pointed hats. They ran at lightning speed to the trunks of the trees, snatching at dried branches, their voices high like chattering squirrels. They scurried away back to the snow drifts with their haul, pulling the branches away under them, disappearing.

Author watched all of this from the large picture window by the door, keeping one hand on the gossamer lace curtain. A few seconds later, a figure emerged from down the winding path that led up to the Burrow, wearing a snow dusted purple shawl and red beret.

He opened the door to a blast of cold winter air, stepping with a crunch into the buildup of snow by the front door as his wife drew closer to the house. "Alright my dear?"

Molly shook the snow off her boots before stepping over the threshold and inside the living room, removing her hat, sending flecks of snow falling to the floorboards.

The house was warmer than it had been outside, but a coolness hung throughout it. The he fire in the living room was still lit, but had consumed half of the log, and was beginning to die out.

Arthur reached out to take her handbag, feeling the chill of her hands even through her gloves. "You're frozen- let me fix you a hot drink"

"Has she woken up yet?" Molly removed her shawl and hung it up on a peg by the door.

"About an hour after you left," Arthur answered.

Molly digested this news. "How did she seem?"

"A bit better-" he answered. "When I went up to check on her Harry was with her, helping her get sorted for the morning."

"And how did _he_ seem?" Molly cast a glance up the winding flights of stairs, trying to reach her gaze to her bedroom, to the pair that was inside of it.

"As well as can be expected-" Author answered truthfully. –"both of them." He reached out and placed a hand across her shoulders. "George owled. He's caught up at shop, but he should be here with Angelina by midmorning, Fleur and Bill should arrive soon after-"

Molly signed, like she didn't want to expect anymore badness to happen, but that it was going too. "I just want one thing to go _right-_ "

Author reached over and kissed her forehead. "Give it time darling, it will all sort itself out."

Molly set her head against her husband's shoulder, turning to him as he wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back.

She raised her head when she heard movement on the stairs. She pulled away from her husband, walking towards the staircase, craning her head to look up it.

"What in heaven's name-are you _doing_?"

Her voice pierced the air in disbelief as she hurried up the first flight of stairs, where Harry was moving down the steps very slowly with Hermione in his hold, Ron and Ginny following close behind.

"Careful Mate," Ron hovered his hands over Harry and Hermione like he was trying to guard a piece of china from toppling down the stairs. "Don't drop her, she's heavy-"

"Honestly Ron," Ginny said. "She's not a sack of bricks."

Molly stopped them. "No!-" she blocked off the landing with her body "She's not even supposed to be out of bed yet!"

"It wasn't our idea mum," Ron said in defense.

"It's alright Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said, her arms around Harry's neck, "Harry carried me the whole way, I didn't walk-"

"As well you _shouldn't_ have-" Molly informed. "The Healer said you should rest _in bed_ for two days-"

"Please Mrs. Weasley-" Hermione said. "Your room is lovely, but it just feels, so _isolated_ from everyone- I can't be in there all da-"

Molly's expression lessoned at Hermione's last words, seeing the girl in jeans and a sweater, bare feet, noting how pale she still looked. "Alright, love alright-" she moved aside to let them pass.

"Careful Harry," Molly repeated her son's sentiment, placing a hand on Harry's shoulder, and Hermione's arm. "One step at a time" She followed the pair of them until they reached the first floor, her arms still out over both of them. "This way-" she kept her hand on them until they reached the sofa.

"Ginny run out to the woodpile and bring another log for the fire, it's like an icebox in here-"

A blast of cold air erupted in the house for a split second as Ginny opened and shut the door quickly, a burst of snow flurries brushing the floorboards.

"Right here love-" Molly coaxed gently, helping Harry maneuver Hermione down on the sofa. She was a small thing, but Molly knew what it was like to be that pregnant and wanted to minimize Hermione's discomfort.

Once Hermione was down on the sofa, Mrs. Weasley took the knitted afghan from off the end of the sofa where it still sat in a pile from the night before. She took out her wand from her dress pocket, casting a warming spell on the blanket just as another blast of cold air signaled the return of Ginny from outside, a square cut of wood in her hand, along with a long spindly branch with pine needles on it.

"I brought a fallen branch from under the pine tree as well," Ginny said, wiping a large amount of snow off her red hair. "The sap will keep the fire hotter."

"Good girl," Molly said of Ginny's ingenuity. "Put them on the fire, and then go have a hot drink before you catch your death."

Ginny knelt by the fire, and set the log in the center of the flames where the orange flames caught it and began to spread over it. She threw the pine branch over top of it and plume of black smoke emitted with a popping hiss, the flame glowing red, with blue tipped edges.

Molly draped the warmed blanket over Hermione, as well as a pair of wool socks. "Warm enough love?"

Hermione nodded. "Thank you-"

Mrs. Weasely brushed her off with a wave of her hand, turning to the rest in the room. "Have you all had breakfast?"

"Ginny tried to cook," Ron said. "Wasn't too horrible."

Ginny stood back up poking at the log with the fire poker, sending red embers floating up above the flames. "Thanks Ron," She walked over to her brother, setting a hand on his shoulder, wiping her resin covered hands on the sleeve of his sweater.

Ron jerked back with an "Oi!"

"Are you alright Ronald?" Molly asked in concern, not seeing what Ginny had done.

"It's nothing mum," Ron rubbed away at the cold spot on his arm. "Just a draft," He shot Ginny a look which she returned with a soft amused smile.

Molly eyed him up and down like she could sense he was lying, "You all look bit peaky to me," She shifted her gaze to encompass everyone who resided in her living room. " _All_ of you- A hot breakfast will help sort you out," she turned, walking out of the living room and into the kitchen with the manner of a general going into war.

No more than 10 minutes later she emerged from the kitchen, levitating a wooden tray laden down with plates of fat biscuits, large pieces of hot bacon, alongside a ball of butter, small jar of blackberry preserves and a bowl of fresh clotted cream. Alongside the tray floated a hammered silver teapot, steam curling out of the spout, and a stack of clean plates white teacups with red rimmed edges "Careful, it's all very hot," she warned, drifting the tray and teapot to a rest on the coffee table that sat in between the sofa and two fat arm chairs.

"What on earth happened to my kitchen?" Molly began serving up the food onto the plates with her wand, levitating each plate to a person along with a hot cup of black tea. "It looks like a pack of Garden Gnomes were set loose-" she said all of this like an afterthought, but with just enough irritation in her voice so that all the other Weasley's looked slightly cowed.

"I was baking mum," Ginny answered. "I was trying to make Great Grandmum Rose's iced buns-"

"They were actually pretty good," Harry said in defense of Ginny to keep her from getting into too much trouble with her mum.

"Oh Ginny," Molly gave her a look of sympathy like she had just done something wrong unknowingly. "I appreciate the thought darling, really I do, but your Great-Grandmum Rose was richer than Cornelius Fudge and twice as arrogant. She never cooked anything a day in her life. All her 'recipes' were ones that she paid off her lot of servants to come up with so that she could appear cultured, and barely any of _them_ were even adept at cooking." she levitated a plate of food and tea out to Ginny and Hermione. I only keep those recipe cards out of loyalty to your father."

"Your mother's not wrong, Grandmum was a real piece of work-" Author said, poured a small amount of milk into his tea from the mini metal creamer pitcher he had carried in from the kitchen. "She used to throw house elves into the kitchen fires when they she thought they were stepping out of line."

"That's bloody _disgusting!"_ Ron complained.

"Alright- that's enough of all this barbaric talk-" Molly clapped her hands towards the food she had just given out- "Eat up, I want everyone in top form to help me do something with this house before Christmas. All of course you Hermione dear," Molly added. "You're getting closer to the end, and I know how daunting and exhausting it all is, you just lie back and rest, alright?"

They ate their food right in the living room on the sofa, chairs, and the floor, like it was a picnic. The biscuits were fluffy and light, and the bacon slices thick, the tea hot enough to sustain its temperature even with any additions of cream and sugar. Ginny's iced buns were good, but Mrs. Weasley's breakfast was more substantial, filling their stomachs with a satisfying fullness. Harry sat at the edge of the sofa with Hermione's leg's draped across his lap despite her objection that she was far too big for it to be comfortable for him, but he ultimately ignored her.

After breakfast, had been eaten, all but Hermione collected their plates, taking them back to the kitchen.

"Here," Harry stood in front of Hermione, holding out a fat book, bound in brown leather. The title was etched in gilt letters: _"Transformations for a New Era: A Practical Guide to Alchemy_ "It was meant to be your Christmas gift, but I suspect you'll turn into a nutter just sitting here with nothing to do"

Hermione took the book from him, smelling the newness of the leather cover. "You don't suspect calling me a nutter right now would be appropriate?"

"I reckoned I'd take my chances anyway," Harry returned.

She shook her head at him and leaned up to kiss him on the mouth, making him pull back with a quiet smile.

"Harry dear-" Mrs. Weasely came towards him carrying several large cardboard boxes, Ginny, Ron and Mr. Weasely each doing the same. One of the boxes tucked under Mrs. Weasely's arms was shaking and emitting a rattling high pitched noise. "Take this one-" she passed him one of the boxes. "Mind you be careful, the ornaments inside are animated and they're not happy about being shut up all year in the attic."

"Oh – alright-" Harry said, walking the box away from Hermione so no small figurines would jump out and attack her. He set the box down on the floor by the evergreen tree. He stood up and slid the wand out of his pocket, hovering it over the box. " _Alohomora"_ after he said the spell, the rattling increased as the flaps of the box opened.

Hermione watched him poke inside the box with the tip of his wand like he was prodding a hornet's nest. His hand jerked down inside the box, and a second later he pulled his wand back like he had caught something fishing. Clinging to his wand was were tiny nut crackers the size of his fingers. There were six in total, the first one clung to the end of his wand, the other 5 clung to the feet of the one before it. They all were making a kind of angry buzzing sound, each trying to climb up the other one to reach Harry's hand.

"Watch it Harry," Ron walked over to him. "Last year one of them damn near bit my bloody finger clear off," Ron reached out and tickled the stomachs of each of the little nutcrackers and a high-pitched squeak, much like would come from a rat emitted from the tiny figurines. "You've got to make'em laugh, it disorients them long enough to hang'em on the tree." The nutcrackers all let go of the wand or each other to grab at their stomachs in giddy laughter, falling with a series of quiet thuds back inside the box.

Ron waited for a count of 30 seconds before reaching inside the box, pulling out one of the nutcrackers, who now stood and swayed drunkenly in his hand. He reached out and hung it to the branch of the Christmas tree by a string stuck in the top of it's black tophat. It dangled on the branch, shook it's head, but did not retaliate like before, instead taking a deep breath of the tree, and closing its eyes content.

Harry took all this in with a bit of a bewildered laugh. "I don't think I'll ever get used to all aspects of magic-"

"Muggle Christmas trees have moving figurines, don't they?" Ron asked. "I've seen them in shop windows-"

"Not without batteries or sensors they don't," Harry explained. "And they usually don't try to have a go at someone's hand for being in a box."

"Muggle Holidays sound boring if you ask me," Ron insisted, hanging another drunkenly pacified Nutcracker on the tree a few inches down from its companion.

"Well there was that one year with the "Tickle Me Elmo," Hermione chimed in. "When I was six my aunt went to the States and tried to get one for my baby cousin and I during her holiday. Nearly got trampled by a mob of other shoppers-"

Harry gave her a knowing look of sympathy, recalling the incident in vague snatches on the BBC news and by Uncle Vernon calling Americans "Brutish unmannered slobs" as he and Dudley stuffed their faces with toffees in front of the television.

" _Elmo?"_ Ron said the name with a strange look, "What is that? Some sort of dancing sprite or something?"

Hermione shook her head in light amusement at Ron's cluelessness. "I'll fill you in later," she turned her attention back to the book in her lap. The cover opened with a squeak of the new leather. On the first cream colored end page, was an inscription in Harry's handwriting:

' _For my best friend'_

"Harry-"

"Yeah?" Harry turned from where he was hanging the last nutcracker on the tree, who was thankfully still and complacent. Hermione had the book he had given her open in her lap, one hand on the first page, eyes shining.

He watched her back. "Merry Christmas Hermione."

"Merry Christmas Harry," she said with a small voice, remembering standing near him beside a snow covered grave no less than a year ago, telling him the same thing.

"Hey," Ron tapped Harry's shoulder, regarding this scene with an acquired coolness of a having seen it before. It had taken awhile to grow comfortable with it all, but they were happy, and he was their friend. He gestured to the nutcracker in Harry's hand who was starting to shake his head like he was coming out of a drunken stupor. "You need to get that git on the tree before he comes round and amputates your pinky off-"

"Right, sorry," Harry reached up and hung the wooden man up on one of the higher branches, having to splay his fingers wide to avoid his swinging arms and legs. It swayed back and forth a moment, cursing in a high squeaky voice before it took a long-drawn breath of the pine needles and became sated and stilled with a deep smile on its face.

They decorated the house for the rest of the morning, adding Gryffindor colored balls of maroon and gold to the nutcrackers, as well as bows of red ribbon. At 11, true to his word, George arrived with Angelina, the pair of them windswept and covered in snow like they had been dusted by a baker with flour. They were loaded down with gifts, mostly from the joke shop which George still maintained, keeping Fred's name on the placard outside.

Angelina took off her knitted white beanie and sat down on the sofa arm in jeans and a long maroon tunic sweater cold from the air outside. "George told me about what happened-" she set a hand on Hermione's round stomach under her sweater, eyeing her in concern. "You alright?"

Hermione nodded. "It's better today, except no one will let me do anything."

"As they bloody well shouldn't," Angelina returned in the same outspokenness she had at Hogwarts, the kind that had led her to befriend the Weasely brothers when others had thought they were too off the wall to do more than just tell stories about. "You're making a _human_ Hermione, you're doing enough." She stood up from the sofa and turned to Harry, looking at him pointedly "You're making sure she knocks off any hard work, right Potter?"

"I'm doing my best, Angelina-" Harry returned.

"Good answer mate," George reached over to slap Harry on the shoulder.

Angelina shot George a look before glancing around the room at all the decorations, moving around the house in her knee-high leather boots. "It looks beautiful in here Mrs. Weasley, truly." She unwound the red scarf around her neck and unbuttoned her black double breasted pea coat she wore, brushing snow off her long braids.

"Thank you dear," Molly reached out and took the coat and scarf from Angelina, the ring on her left hand sparkling under the light of the lamps and the fire. "George hang these by the door for me."

"Oi mum," George grabbed the coat and scarf his mother shoved at him "I don't live here anymore remember?"

"George Weasley, I raised you with manners," Molly cut in, "and that includes you hanging up your fiancée's coat in her future in-law's house!"

George had given the engagement ring to Angelina at the start of December. They had been seeing each other since a month after the War. It had started off as a need for them to be with someone who had understood Fred the way each of them had, there was no intention to take it any further, feeling like they were dishonoring Fred. But, their relationship grew stronger without their knowing, and they finally allowed themselves to recognize it.

George was effectively cowed, and hung walked off to do as his mother asked, coming back a moment later, rubbing his hands together and surveying the living room with its Christmas decorations, seeing the nutcrackers hanging asleep by their threads among all the glowing candles, one of them with a pine needle hanging loosely from its mouth. "I see you lot waited until I came before really making sure the Christmas decorations were in order-"

"Stuff it," Ginny retorted, not receiving a reprimand from her mother, who had gone back into the kitchen to clean the breakfast dishes. "You never helped decorate, you and Fred used to just light fire crackers under the tree to scare the nutcrackers. Remember, how they're were ten of them before? Four of them burned the last time you helped 'decorate' the tree."

George smiled warmly at the memory Ginny's word had dredged up, still hearing the echo of Fred's laugh even as their mother was chasing them around the living room, yelling her head off. He half expected to turn around and see Fred standing beside him, grinning away. But the spot was empty of his brother, Ginny in his place, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring that up-"

George turned, placing his hands on his sister's shoulders. "He's our brother Gin, I don't think we're ever supposed to leave off talking about him-" the smile he gave her was sad.

Ginny nodded, and a solitary tear dropped from her eye, sliding down her neck.

George leaned over and kissed her forehead briefly, rubbing at her shoulder. "We'd better knock off before mum wants a picture for the Christmas album." He whispered

Ginny laughed, wiping at her eyes quickly.

Morning grew into afternoon, the sun rising higher in the sky, making the shadows on the snow-covered lawn disappear under the mid-day sun. They spent that time decorating the house in holly branches and wreaths made of twisted boxwood and bright red winterberry. Hermione was the only one not helping in the decorating, and instead called out when the branches were straight on the wall with the accuracy of a sea captain with Cartesian directions. She would do this while alternately reading the book Harry had given her, all while doing her best to not feel guilty about lying down while everyone worked and bustled around her.

Bill and Fleur arrived by Floo at two, with their one-year-old daughter Victorie, a chubby cheeked cherub girl with Fleur's fair skin and blue eyes with a head of strawberry blonde baby curls. She wore a dress of periwinkle blue velvet, clutching a rag doll to the front of it. Fleur wore blue as well, a long tunic in a darker cornflower over black leggings and heeled black boots. Victorie came alive with a squeal at seeing Molly, calling out "gand!"

Fleur set her down on the floor and she squealed again and toddled over to into Molly's open arms.

"There's my little love!" Molly scooped up the girl with a laugh, placing kisses all over her cheeks.

Victorie giggled and held out her doll, waving it high the air above Molly's head.

"What have you got there?" Molly laughed, and took the doll from Victorie, making a big display of holding it out to examine its white cloth face and dress made of pink French silk. "She's lovely, darling, almost as much as you." Molly snuck in one more set of kisses set the girl down on floor by the sofa when she began trying to wiggle out of her grasp, pulling off her white coat.

As soon as she was set down on the floor, Victorie turned and began to scoot over to the coffee table, pulling up on it with a series of _"pfft"_ and _"putta"_ sounds. She regarded Hermione on the sofa with large blue eyes.

"Hello," Hermione smiled at the baby, making a smile come to Victorie's face.

The girl pulled herself along the wooden coffee table, hovering for a brief moment in the open space between the table and the sofa.

Hermione held out of her hands and Victorie honed on it, the action giving her the daring to let go of the table, falling forward.

Hermione sat up and grabbed the girl's arms, leading her to fall into the sofa cushions and not the floor.

Bill knelt behind Victorie, whose muffled laughter could be heard in the couch cushions, pulling her up to a standing position by her arms "Easy darling-" he said to the single toothed smile she gave him. "Aunt Hermione's not well enough yet for your hijinks-" He scooped up his daughter, and leant over to kiss Hermione on the cheek. "Alright Hermione? You gave us a bit of a jump scare." The werewolf scars were prominent on his face, a caved in slash that ran under his right eye, fanning out to three thin slashes under his cheek. He bounced Victorie in his arms and she giggled, reaching back to scoop his face in the bend of her entire arm, her hand landing on the scar that she didn't care about.

"Hermione-" Fleur came around, to the sofa, reaching out to take Hermione's face in her hands, kissing her on both cheeks, looking at her with eyes as every bit as blue as Victorie's. remembering the state Hermione had been in when she Ron, and Harry had come to their home seven months earlier. The younger woman had been half dead and bleeding from giant slashes in her abdomen.

"It's alright, Fleur" Hermione was thinking the same thing Fleur had, of that horrible night, that bore such a parallel to the night before. "It's fine now-"

Like Angelina Fleur, set a hand on Hermione's stomach, rubbing it over the top of the blanket, offering her a comforting smile.

"Harry-" Fleur stood back up and moved hug Harry around the neck and kiss him on the cheek, looking from him and back down to Hermione. "My heart would not beat properly until Molly toldz us you ze're alright," she placed on hand on Bill's back, reaching out to squeeze Victorie's foot clad in a patent leather shoe. "I am sorry zat it happened-I cannot imagine zat kind of-" she stalled out, glancing at both Harry and Hermione, seeming to remember where she was, and instead replaced what she was going to say with a reassuring smile "We are here for you both, whatever you need, you need only ask-"

All through the afternoon, Hermione watched Victorie's excitement as she toddled all over the floorboards in long stockings knitted out of delicate white lace, held up by her parents or grandparents, or even once, her uncle Ron, who had to bend over so low to scoop her up. But it was the interaction between Victorie with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley that Hermione paid the most attention to, the way she would be scooped up with a high squeal into Mr. Weasely's arms, her back rubbed lovingly by Mrs. Weasely. It made her expression drift somewhere else, trying to push down the stinging feeling that was the realization that the baby she was carrying may never know any of that kind of love.

At 3 pm they received an owl from Lupin, who said that he would arrive on Christmas Day with Tonks and little Teddy, not being able to get away until then. He and Tonks both still had nerve damage from the spells inflicted on them by the Death Eaters during the final battle, causing Tonks to take an extended leave of absence from her Auror post. During those first few weeks, Harry offered to stay with them to help take care of Teddy, only he didn't have much experience with a then, 6-month-old either, so often Mrs. Weasely would join them and make sure Teddy was fed properly and changed at regular intervals, and basically kept Harry sane.

Mrs. Weasely served an early supper of roast chicken and buttered carrots with leeks, which they all once again all ate in the living room picnic style so Hermione could be included without having to move. All through the eating, she questioned Hermione on how she was feeling, if she was getting enough to eat. When Hermione refused to eat more than half a plate of food, Molly made a hot concoction of milk swirled with mint, cinnamon, heavy cream and peppermint elixir, explaining to Hermione that during her last month of pregnancy with Ginny she had been so ill that she could barely eat, and a friend suggested this drink to her.

When Hermione sipped it, the hot milk and cream spread warmly down her throat, and the peppermint helped reign back the nausea that clung to her like a spider web.

After dinner, Molly went to the Christmas tree, where there was now a collection of boxes and soft looking packages wrapped in an assortment of different colored paper at its base. She reached down, pulling out a small bundled package wrapped in maroon paper with gold ribbon.

"Christmas is still two days away-" Molly came over to the sofa and laid the gift in Hermione's lap. "But I'd like you to have this now."

Hermione undid the bow from the ribbon, the wrapping paper opening in folds like a flower petal. Nestled inside were two knitted things: a cream white pullover sweater with flecks of gold yarn intermingled through it and the other, a baby blanket, made from the same colored wool.

Hermione's lifted the blanket out of the package, her fingers gliding over the wool which was buttery soft.

"It's going to be cold out for a long while," Molly said. "You'll both need something to keep warm."

"E'est merveilleux-" Fleur exclaimed when she saw it "It ez beautiful!"

Hermione's throat burned, she couldn't say anything. "You didn't have to do this-"

"Of course, I did," Molly insisted, setting her hand on the side of Hermione's face. "I've always considered you a part of this family-"

Hermione closed her eyes and a tear fell from her face. "Thank you," she reached over and hugged Mrs. Weasely who reached back to return the embrace.

Past the living room, there came a knock at the door, hesitant and timid sounding.

Hermione pulled away from Molly, They each looked at each other in turn, Molly stood up. "I'll get it-"

"Wait mum," Bill set a hand on his mother's arm, stilling her movements. He pulled his wand out of his pocket.

"Really Bill," Molly regarded the gesture with a shake of her head, pushing past her son, "There's no need for any of that-"

She began to walk past him again, but he again grabbed her arm. "You don't know what's it's been like out there-" He had seen too many pockets of Voldemort supporters after the War, posing as door-to-door wand salesmen, even turning themselves into lost children with Pollyjuice Potion in order to gain access to people's homes.

"I most certainly _do_ know what it's like William Weasley!" Molly returned, using Bill's full name. "I helped _put_ the enchantment on the Burrow you recall. And I will not treat every knock on the door like it's always a Death Eater come calling!" Molly pushed past him one last time, reaching the front door before he was able to stop her.

Standing outside in the snow was a blonde man and brunette woman, snow covering their coats in dots of white. They book looked somewhat startled to be there at all.

Bill eyed the pair warily, his wand poised at them both. "Can I help you?"

"This is the Weasley residence correct?" The woman asked, taking a moment to look around back behind her at the collection of Wellington Boots in the yard half buried under snowdrifts like she was trying to recall if she remembered any of it under the snow. I'm sorry I feel like I'm in a dream-I know I've been here before, but my memory's not been the same lately-"

Bill raised his wand higher. "Who are you-? You best tell the truth-"

"We were asked to come by your mum," the man answered. "She gave us this," he pulled out an old brass skeleton key from his coat pocket. "Told us we both needed to touch it to get here-"

"Dad?" Hermione turned to the sounds of the voices.

Bill finally lowered his wand, stepping back from the door. From the sofa, Hermione's eyes widened at the sight of her parents standing out in the snow.

"Come in, come in-" Molly said to the Grangers, moving aside to let them enter.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger stepped into foyer, half glancing at all the Weasley's and Fleur and Angelina who were watching them.

Hermione moved the blanket covering her and move to stand up from the sofa.

"Hermione-" Ron tried to keep her down, but she set her feet on floorboards and pulled herself up to a standing position.

"No," Molly rushed over and took Hermione's arm. "My dear you're not well enough. Sit back down- we'll go," she turned to her family. "Everyone into the kitchen, let's give them some privacy"

Hermione fought the urge to move past Mrs. Weasley and rush to her parents "What do you want?"

Lucinda stepped closer to her in, snow dampened jeans and black boots. "We want you to come home-It's been so long."

Hermione watched as her mother began to move towards her. "I can't-" her voice trembled and she backed up. This was what she wanted, ever since she had stolen her parents' memories. For them to remember her, for them to want her to come back home. "You were right, I'm not who I was-"

"You're still our daughter-" Lucinda said.

"Then why can't you accept me?" Hermione returned, her voice giving way to sadness, she turned towards her father, her feet shaky underneath her from not having been on her feet much in the last 30 hours. "Why can't you accept _anything_ about me now?"

"Hermione," her dad said, stepping closer, watching her step back like she was about to be rejected again "Darling please-just hear us out," he caught the sight of Harry watching him from just a few steps behind Hermione. "When you came over before-We weren't- we never meant-" he closed his eyes, blowing out a long sigh, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "You understand this is all a shock? Your mum and I came round after a _year_ of thinking we were different people, then we remembered you, the war-" his voice grew thick. "We thought you'd _died_ , all those wizard papers talked about lists and lists of tragedies. Then you came home like this-" his voice quavered "We just didn't want to loose you all over again."

"We never meant to hurt you-" Lucinda said. "But I know we did-" her voice trembled and shook, a tear sliding down her nose. "I know we did and, we can't take that back-" Lucinda physically hurt at the realization. "But you're She stepped over to her daughter, reaching out with a tentative hand to touch her hair, her hand trembling like she was afraid Hermione would disapperate away again. "I'm sorry-" tears moved swiftly down her face. She moved her hand from Hermione's hair to trace the edge of her ear. "I'm so sorry baby-"

Hermione's breathing quickened, heart pounding, the burning pain in her chest exploding into another kind of pain, the kind that came after a long festering wound had finally been lanced of all it's poison. She turned into the touch, and drew her arms around her mother, tears coming out in a hot rush down her face.

Her mother folded her tightly into her arms, her coat cold, smelling like her lavender perfume.

Peter walked over setting two hands on his daughter's back, "You didn't do anything wrong," he felt her turn around, her eyes staring at him in a disbelief, that broke his heart.

"You _didn't_ , you understand?" he leant over and pressed kissed to Hermione's head, looking down into his daughter's eyes. "You came home, love," wrapped his arms tight around her, setting his hand atop her head, holding her. "You came back-"

Hermione buried her face in her father's tweed coat, the Burrow blurring in a swirl of color through her tears.

Peter pulled away after a long moment, setting a hand to her stomach, taking a moment to absorb it. "I suppose I'm to be a grandad then-" He glanced from Hermione to Harry.

"Yes you are," Harry responded from where he stood behind Hermione

Peter gave Harry a brief nod. "I suspect we're to spend all our holidays together from now on-"

Hermione laughed a broken fractured sounding laugh, but one that sounded like it could be truly happy again. She nodded and set her hand to her stomach.

A soft smile found its way to Peter's face, and he reached out to embrace his daughter once again, holding to her warmth.

 **BBBB**

 **End.**


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